Mute
Video installation, 2005–2009
Five loops of the ongoing Mute project: Italy, 2006; France, Hungary, 2007; USA, 2008; Germany, 2009
Maybe the most unique button on a TV remote control is the mute. With the help of this button we can realize and comprehend new definitions of commercial moving images and also see that they are enjoyable without sound. The audio-visual dramaturgy of TV is so well designed for a perceptional overkill that we usually can understand the basic content just through the images. We can read the moving image instead of being immersed in the total audio-visual experience. The staged debates of a country's top political contenders are in the focus of public attention: every little detail or aspect is precisely analyzed beforehand and after. For a short time two people who represent opposing arguments, who sometimes never meet outside of this staged scenario, are in the same space at the same time. Their body language functions directly; their interactions are real, live, even if they are mainly formal. If we turn off the manipulated level, i. e. the sound of the original piece, we can perceive the image in a different manner; in opposition to the way in which it was planned. The jokes keep our eyes on the screen and the transformed joke-stereotypes focus the critical edge in a more painful direction: toward the bureaucratic infrastructure of contemporary art. An unexpected form of criticism of the institutional system appears.
(Johan Sjerpstra, http://zoltanlabas.de/umraum/sjerpstra)
